BRITAIN AND THE OTHERS^219
the virtues that have promoted economic and material progress. They
represent a marked deviation from earlier social and political arrange
ments; and it is not a coincidence that the first industrial nation came
closest earliest to this new kind of social order.
To begin with, Britain had the early advantage of being a nation. By
that I mean not simply the realm of a ruler, not simply a state or po
litical entity, but a self-conscious, self-aware unit characterized by com
mon identity and loyalty and by equality of civil status.^6 Nations can
reconcile social purpose with individual aspirations and initiatives and
enhance performance by their collective synergy. The whole is more
than the sum of the parts. Citizens of a nation will respond better to
state encouragement and initiatives; conversely, the state will know
better what to do and how, in accord with active social forces.^7 Nations
can compete.
Britain, moreover, was not just any nation. This was a precociously
modern, industrial nation. Remember that the salient characteristic of
such a society is the ability to transform itself and adapt to new things
and ways, so that the content of "modern" and "industrial" is always
changing. One key area of change: the increasing freedom and security
of the people. To this day, ironically, the British term themselves sub
jects of the crown, although they have long—longer than anywhere—
been citizens. Nothing did more for enterprise. Here is Adam Smith:
The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when
suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle,
that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on
the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred im
pertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often in
cumbers its operations; though the effect of these obstructions is always
more or less either to encroach upon its freedom, or to diminish its secu
rity. In Great Britain industry is perfectiy secure; and though it is far from
being perfecdy free, it is as free or freer than in any other part of Europe.^8
How far to push back the origins of English social precocity is a
matter of historical dispute. One scholar would go back to the Mid
dle Ages (pre-1500) and what he calls the rise of individualism. This
was a society that shed the burdens of serfdom, developed a popula
tion of cultivators rather than peasants, imported industry and trade
into the countryside, sacrificed custom to profit and tradition to com-